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“It is very frustrating”, admits Dr Laura Malone. “At the moment we don’t have any vaccine.”
Standing in her bright, modern clinic in the centre of the lakeside tourist town of Killarney, Ireland, the GP is palpably keen to start vaccinating her elderly patients against COVID-19 but is still awaiting delivery of the doses.
“We have around 250 patients in the age cohort that we need to vaccinate [over-85s],” she says.
“It’s frustrating, but we also look at that with some degree of hope, because we’re happy that we’ll be able to provide this to our patients. Hopefully the end is in sight.”
She’s not alone. Sky News spoke to all seven GP practices in the picturesque Co Kerry town. Only one, Deenagh Medical Practice, had taken delivery of vaccines and was administering doses. Two more are hoping for their first delivery today, while several others thought they may get vaccines next week, but weren’t sure.
It’s a disjointed picture. One practice staff member, who didn’t want to be named, said she couldn’t understand why there was such little information given to them about vaccine delivery.
Another GP, Dr Gary Stack of Park Medical, also uses the word “frustration”, and says communications with the various practices could have been better. He expects his first delivery next Tuesday, more than two weeks after the Irish government announced the start of GP-led vaccinations.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) told Sky News: “We are delivering vaccines to GP practices according to the level of supply being delivered to the country. We understand that GPs and their patients are eager to receive the vaccine. We are working to control and stagger the delivery of vaccines in line with this level of supply.”
The Level 5 lockdown will last until at least 5 April
But it’s the supply that’s the problem for Ireland, like many EU member states. Around 4.5% of the population…
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